The goal you indicate in the command line is linked to the lifecycle of Maven. For example, the build lifecycle (you also have the clean and site lifecycles which are different) is composed of the following phases:

validate: validate the project is correct and all necessary information is available.

compile: compile the source code of the project.

test: test the compiled source code using a suitable unit testing framework. These tests should not require the code be packaged or deployed.

package: take the compiled code and package it in its distributable format, such as a JAR.

integration-test: process and deploy the package if necessary into an environment where integration tests can be run.

verify: run any checks to verify the package is valid and meets quality criteria

install: install the package into the local repository, for use as a dependency in other projects locally.

deploy: done in an integration or release environment, copies the final package to the remote repository for sharing with other developers and projects.

You can find the list of "core" plugins here, but there are plenty of others plugins, such as the codehaus ones, here.